


Prompt: Sunlight Happiness

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [37]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Powers Swap, Codependency, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:59:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5875222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Vision.”</p><p>The android inclines his head. “I was wondering how your brother was doing after you left in such a hurry,” he explains. “I believe you were sleeping when I arrived.”</p><p>Wanda gently nibbles the inside of her cheek, considering. Despite her brother’s power it is <i>she</i> who is the best at reading people, and she knows the android will speak nothing but the truth. </p><p>It is odd, all the same, for someone other than them to have a single care for either of them.</p><p>--</p><p>Continued from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5478920"> This</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5749978">This</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Sunlight Happiness

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Prompt: Opposites](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5478920) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). 
  * Inspired by [Prompt: Reflected Souls](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5749978) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). 



> Written for a prompt on my tumblr to be a continuation of the Power Swap universe. Readable [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/138469763805/hi-im-not-sure-if-youre-still-taking-prompts).

**i.**  
When Wanda wakes the room is quiet. Pietro’s breaths are soft, and when she stretches scarlet tendrils towards his mind she finds his blue swirling in gentle peace. Watching from the windows of his mind she can see the way his blue is stretching out, like gentle fingers, teasing the nightmares away from sleeping minds, and letting them dream in peace.

She can also see the mind, orange databanks and green-red neuron netting, resting peaceably by their bed.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
The frame creaks very slightly as she shifts upright. Pietro is sleeping deeply, and she knows he will not wake - he is too used to her presence to ever think her moving some kind of risk or threat - but clearly the android senses her movement as the gem on his brow shifts and catches the light. The sickly yellow shine of it reminds Wanda painfully of the virus that gave them their gifts.

“Miss Maximoff,” the android says. His voice is soft, and despite the crisp politeness it’s somehow unassuming. There is nothing expectant in his tone, just simple acknowledgement, and it is almost like talking to Pietro in the simplicity of it. It takes her a moment to recall his name.

“Vision.”

The android inclines his head. “I was wondering how your brother was doing after you left in such a hurry,” he explains. “I believe you were sleeping when I arrived.”

Wanda gently nibbles the inside of her cheek, considering. Despite her brother’s power it is _she_  who is the best at reading people, and she knows the android will speak nothing but the truth. 

It is odd, all the same, for someone other than them to have a single care for either of them.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
The base they finally set down in is ... crisp. Clean. Most of the refugees were set down quite quickly, after their sleep, and offers made by Fury (but not - notably - Stark) to help with anything they could, so it’s just the Avengers, the android and them when they set down in America.

“I had Pepper talk to some people about cleaning it up,” Stark says. “Should be shiny and new.”

Wanda stays close to her brother, hands on his arm, as Pietro surveys the buildings. _It’s safe,_  he sends. _No malicious minds at all_. She can see, shining to his mind, the bright orange and green of Vision’s mind. He seems almost protective of him, more so than Wanda, who still does not like how easily the android walks among those who mean well and harm all the same. There is an openness to him, in everything he says. It is what the others happily call naive, but Wanda thinks it is hope, and knows that her brother has a firmer idea still of what the android means each time he speaks. 

It unnerves her though, how human he is.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
“You are comfortable with him,” Wanda says one evening, sitting cross-legged on her bed. Pietro’s eyes are shut, hands resting on his knees, meditating as the Widow had shown him to. They’ve still not found anything to treat his crippling migraines, but they’ve found things which help. Pietro’s eyes stay shut as he speaks.

“He’s comfortable to be around,” Pietro says. “His mind is as peaceful as yours.”

Wanda’s lips quirk in a smile. “And he doesn’t hide things at all.”

The corners of Pietro’s mouth lift up, and she can see him trying to hold back the smile that breaks across his face. His voice is teasing. “Unlike you.”

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
Vision cannot seem to read their minds, Pietro learns, for all he has the Mind Stone, but he can see their bond, see the darting blue and scarlet string that binds them together as surely as their blood does, as their twinship does. A few times Pietro considers making a bond to the androids mind, but does not know if Wanda would quite approve. She doesn’t dislike Vision - she seems, indeed, to like him - but there is something _important_  about the nature of their bond, and it does not seem right to break it in that way.

All the same it is easy to talk to Vision, when Wanda is running laps the length of a marathon, or speed-disassembling a gun with the Widow.

“The refugees,” Vision says one day. “They are still refusing to ask Stark for aid. It is almost winter, many of them will freeze if we do not intervene.”

Pietro shakes his head. “We shouldn’t intervene. They’ll resent us more if we do.”

Vision frowns, and Pietro thinks it rather endearing, the confusion of his face and mind playing together. “People are proud,” Pietro says. “Even in poverty.” He hauls himself up, sticks his hands in his pockets, glances to where Wanda is reassembling a gun without even looking at it. He shrugs. “We were.”

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
Wanda sees Vision looking over the news a few days later. Of all of them he seems most concerned by it. The Widow watches for Hulk, Cap watches for signs of HYDRA, but Vision watches for the _people_ , as though by watching alone he might help them, simply from caring. Wanda supposes it might be a comfort to some, to know that something not even human is wishing them well.

There are statistics on the screen, running in some program that she doesn’t recognise and is half-certain the android made himself. Numbers tick down the columns, ramping up the total as he flicks through each article. 

“Death toll?” she asks.

He seems startled to see her, but then, Wanda thinks, he has never seemed to expect attention, even when he offers it. “Yes,” he says. “There will be so many if we do not help.”

There is something in his expression, a kind of wariness, as though he knows what she will say. It seems more than an awareness of what she and Pietro had said before, on the helicarrier, but she can’t be certain, and mentally shrugs. “We have to wait for them to ask,” she says. “They are proud people. More than that, they are _people_. They will wish to do things for themselves, even if it means their deaths.”

Wanda almost feels sorry for Vision when he frowns. There is such uncertainty, such worry, and it is almost childlike in some ways. She knows him to be intelligent, startlingly so, with the whole of the internet at his fingertips, but he is still new to the world, as she and Pietro are still new to their gifts. Wanda takes the tablet gently from his fingers, switches it off, sets it down. The table is not the most comfortable table she could have perched on, but she’s sat on crumbling concrete before and it is better still than that.

“Everyone is different,” Wanda says. “But they are all _people_. Some of them may wish to die. Others may wish to live and will not. Others may wish to die and may not. Some will wish to live and live. It is their wishes, their choices.” She remembers the offer of the ability to fight, her and Pietro’s folly. “It is their own mistakes. Let them make them, even unto death. You cannot know them as they know themselves.”

“But-” Vision starts, and Wanda can almost sense that innocent curiosity that draws Pietro to him.

“They have their reasons,” she says, and squeezes his hand as comfortingly as she would Pietro’s. “Just because it doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t mean it makes no sense to them.”

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
“Your sister,” Vision says one day as Pietro is throwing targets around for Vision to try to hit. “Sometimes, I do not think she likes me.”

Pietro smiles and throws a target at an angle. “It is not as much as like or dislike,” he says. “It never is with us.”

Vision hits the target, and looks to Pietro, brows raised. 

“She does not think you will hurt me,” Pietro says, “And she knows I like your company.” One shoulder rises, falls in a shrug. “It’s simple.”

Pietro thinks the android is beginning to understand, as he nods.

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
Wanda has always, Pietro thinks, been the freer of them. He had spent too long making himself her guardian to easily live without that driving purpose, but Wanda has always known her aims and goals - to help people, guide people, protect people - and considers his protection of her a debt that must be repaid by life. It is growing less uncomfortable to feel her gone from him when they ask her aid running recon or scouting a site, but he does not like how bleak his mind seems without the touch of her scarlet.

 _Sit with him_ , Wanda sends, before running out one day. _He’s not as bright as mine, but you like his colours, don’t you?_

He does, he admits, and sits with Vision, not touching the android’s dancing mind, but appreciating it’s presence all the same. The Quinjet is quiet - they fear Vision would stand out too much for recon and they do not need mind’s bent and twisted as Pietro can do so it is just them - but Pietro’s brow is still creased in worry.

Eventually Vision speaks. “You always seem to miss her presence,” he says. “I thought it was because you are twins, at first, but you seem quite uncomfortable with her gone.”

It is, as many things the android says are, a statement. There is no pressure to speak or even acknowledge he has said anything, but it waits hovering in the air between them like an offer. A conversation lacking any pressure, just as talks with Wanda are.

“I miss her,” Pietro agrees. “Her mind is comforting to me.”

There is quiet again, and Vision tilts his head, pauses. “May... may I ask why?”

 _May I, may I, May I_. A litany of pressureless questions, lacking in obligation to even permit. Pietro smiles, just slightly. “She is quiet. My mind and everyone else always feel so loud. Its peaceful.”

“Oh,” Vision says, as simple an acknowledgement as ever. There is a pause again, a pressureless wait. “Are there other minds like that?”

“Some,” Pietro says. “But I do not know them all. Your mind is like that, usually.”

“Oh,” Vision repeats. “Well,” he says, and there is a weight to it somehow, as his speech does not usually have. “You may look in my mind, if you would like. My offer from when I first woke is still standing.”

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
An arrow of blue, blindingly pale and Pietro has always hated that particular starkness. It is useful with speed, pale light like a heat haze, and he would send it darting with Wanda to hide the thread of her scarlet, but it is so bright, so bold, so _blinding_.

And then there is rich orange, and pale grey-green, and a chasm of everything and nothing all at once.

 _Vast_ , Pietro thinks. _As vast as mine and Wanda’s._

Orange sparks with a touch of the warm magenta of Vision’s skin. _Is it?_  it asks. _I wasn’t certain. I can only see the presence of minds_.

Vision’s voice is clear, clear like Wanda’s is, a crystal clarity, a certain knowing, and Pietro trusts it came from the stone, as Wanda’s came from their twinship. Pietro sends out images of his mind and of Wanda’s.

 _Vast_ , he sends. _Many minds are not._

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
There is something about Vision’s mind that makes him seek it out again. It never takes more than a single _May I?_  for Vision to smile and extend the offer anew, welcoming Pietro into his mind, letting the bright blue soften to grey against the green and orange and the chasm of everything-and-nothing.

Wanda does not seem to mind. Or, more accurately, Wanda has never minded, always wanting Pietro to be more than just her protector, her willing shield. She never asks him to explain the peace of Vision’s mind, it is almost as though she already knows it and, more importantly, knows it makes him happy without hurting him, fulfilling their only tenets. 

 _You like him_ , she sends one day. _And he would not harm a soul if he had that choice. That is good enough for me_.

There is a joy to spending time with Vision, a simple kind, like what it is to spend time with Wanda and yet not. Wanda will still run by, when he is sat beside the android. Press a kiss to his hair, press food into his hands and run on to resume training or talk with the Widow or the Captain, but she does not stay, as though she knows Vision is becoming as important to him as she has always been.

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
“Aren’t you jealous?” Natasha asks, watching Pietro talking with Vision. They are standing on a balcony, darkly lit above the training room. The light barely catches the red in their hair, barely lights their faces, but they can see the two below, smiling and talking. Wanda smiles too.

“Why would I be?” she asks. 

There is a frown on Natasha’s face. “You are very protective of each other. I didn’t think you’d like him spending time away.”

Wanda smiles wider. “Vision wouldn’t hurt him,” she says, and rests her head on her hands where they rest on the railing. “Besides,” she adds. “He is _happy_.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!


End file.
